"String theory. You wouldn't understand."

Just in case you are in San Francisco or New York tonight I thought I’d fill you in on some musical happenings.

Tonight at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco the legendary Sabbath riff-masters, Sleep, are performing their second SF show in a row as part of their reunion tour. I don’t know if it’s sold out or not but it’s all ages and doors are at 7pm.

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A little while back, Omeed and I caught Boris at The El Rey Theatre here in Los Angeles. I had never before had the opportunity to see them live. We were so excited, the entire drive there we were just talking about how the show might be: if they brought their own gear to the states, did they borrow a bus from sunn O))), etc. The opening act, Red Sparrowes, was another band I had not seen live. Frankly, I had never heard of them; however, I think their set was great. Their sound was pretty spot on, the visuals were amazing, and the groove was a great precursor to Boris. Continue reading →

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Fuck Yeah Fest was yesterday, and of course I’m still feelin’ it. As with any show/fest/what have you, there were ups and downs. Unfortunately the up was arriving at the show, and the down was everything to follow. I arrived around 1:30 to find $20 parking and a will call line six blocks long. It was a little over 90 degrees and only getting hotter. By the time I got inside, all stages were up and running. The comedy tent was full and the venue had pretty much run out of water. With thousands of visitors, most of whom were too young to wait the forty minutes to get into the beer garden and buy a cup of overpriced PBR, there were bound to be problems. The venue, L.A. Historic National park, was little more than large dirt pit and a few small half-dead patches of grass. Up until the minute the sun went down, the thing to do was find shade, of which there wasn’t much while trying to relax and avoid being hassled by the overwhelming amount of security, park rangers, and local cops (not to mention ghetto birds). Continue reading →

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Cynic began their US tour a few nights ago at the El Rey here in Los Angeles. I, like many of you, made sure I was there to witness the melodic mayhem firsthand. After a few navigational mishaps, I arrived around 9:30. Walking in, I found I had missed Intronaut. A wave of frustration swept over me. As I gasped for air, I also reached for a cold beer. Frustration subsided. I made my rounds as the house lights brightened, telling us all it was time to use the restroom or grab a drink while the headliners set up. I had actually come at the perfect time. Continue reading →

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This is far from a lazy cash-in from Justin Broadrick, even if it does tie in neatly with his decision to re-ignite Godflesh after eight years. Streetcleaner never got the production it really deserved. Whilst not necessarily the finest Godflesh release (in my opinion, anyway), it’s arguably the one with the most primitive negative energy seething within it–a quality which, due to the way the album was produced at the time, could be sensed but never really felt.

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After three flights, Sean, Paul, and I are back in Los Angeles after 20 days in Europe. We left Gothenburg around 6am and landed in L.A. at 7pm–I’ll leave it to you to figure out the time difference. Tymon and Robin cheated and flew to Holland instead. Cynic and crew will spend the next month recharging before going back out on their first ever headlining US tour, which will see them performing Focus and Traced in Air in their entirety and more.

Obviously, I’m a little behind on the tour blog. Between having no internet for the past week, being super busy, my iPhone WordPress app freaking out/losing several of my drafts, and being lazy, I haven’t been able to do much in the way of site updates. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be playing catch-up and posting the second half of the blogs as well as new photo galleries from myself and some friends we met on tour. If I didn’t talk to you but you have some pictures from any of the shows on this tour, feel free to email me and I’ll post them here.

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German for Shark passed as a big beautiful blur on first listen. Discounting the selection of remixes at the end, it’s actually quite a brief release, with big blocks of sound surging forth and fading into one another without too much pause for breath between each piece. The result is a gorgeous dreamlike montage, with vibrant snatches of ideas forming and melting quickly into something completely different just minutes later.

Male manage to fuse the various instrument components–cornet, guitar, vibraphone, saxophone, percussion, electronics, tapes–into a landscape which is both dynamically and atmospherically diverse, somehow retaining a strong sense of continuity and seamlessness all the while. Not only are these pieces beautifully arranged, but the sonic environment is also cleverly re-arranged in a manner which sustains a writhing, ever-morphing narrative from start to finish.